Not going down that road again! The Golden Bachelorette star Joan Vassos recently shut down speculation that Gerry Turner wanted to possibly rekindle their flame.
Joan, 62, appeared as a guest on the Wednesday, January 22, episode of the “Two Jersey Js” podcast, and hosts Jackie Goldschneider and Jennifer Fessler discussed her relationship with Gerry, 72, after his season of The Golden Bachelor.
“At this point, it’s like a really good friendship,” Joan told the women. “We are really good friends still.”
Jackie, 48, and Jennifer, 54, were seemingly surprised that he and Joan “keep in touch” and added that they “couldn’t help but think that [Gerry] wanted to give it a try after him and Theresa [Nist] broke up.” However, Joan was quick to put an end to that line of thinking.
“I’m not gonna comment,” the mom of four replied.
Gerry and Joan developed a connection when she appeared in the inaugural season of The Golden Bachelor, but her time on the show was cut short. During the October 12, 2023, episode, Joan received a text from her daughter, who had just given birth a little over two weeks prior, about a family emergency.
“I got a text this morning, and I think I need to go home and be a mom right now,” Joan explained to Gerry. “So as much as I don’t want to leave — and I don’t want to leave our journey — I got to be a parent.”
The private school administrator gave more insight to her exit during the Women Tell All episode in November 2023 and explained she was initially planning to return to Gerry’s season.
“I got home, and my plan was to give [my daughter] some care — I needed to get her some mental health care,” Joan said. “I was in the process of doing that, and I was approached, and they said, ‘Do you want to come back?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to come back, let me see how I’m doing with my daughter.’”
The producers actually went ahead and booked Joan a flight to return to filming less than one week later, but, unfortunately, she revealed that she wasn’t able to take them up on the offer when the time came because her “daughter wasn’t doing good again.”
However, Joan got another chance at finding love when she was chosen as the star of The Golden Bachelorette season 1. Her time on the show led her to meeting Chock Chapple, one of 24 bachelors vying for her heart. Chock, 61, quickly made an impression with Joan and he was awarded the first one-on-one date of her season. Like Joan, he was called away from the show when his mother passed away unexpectedly, but he managed to return. Ultimately, he was Joan’s choice in the finale.
“From our first date in Disneyland, I thought I saw a future with you and it’s the first time I pictured a future with anybody else in a really long time,” Joan said in the heartfelt moment. “And then tragedy hit your family and your mom passed away and you had to leave. I wanted you to go but I was really worried that you weren’t going to make it back and that’s when I realized that I couldn’t do this journey without you. I waited til this moment in this amazing location to tell you that I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
The couple still hasn’t officially tied the knot and have revealed they have no issues taking their relationship slowly.
